Monday, October 20, 2008

Yes. Yes, I can.I-91S to exit 32B. Straight through six lights and the XL Center containing the majestic Sesame Street and its characters will be on your right hand side...at least until the show closes.Oh Sesame Street Live - we loved you.Scarlett had no idea what she was in for. We kept saying "are we going to go see Mo?" but she didn't know what we were talking about. She was excited though, as you can tell from this picture outside the XL Center in Hartford. Mo was everywhere inside the building. Scarlett kept running from Mo poster to Mo poster and pointing at Mo (Elmo) and Cookie (every blue character). Our seats were awesome. Joe kept asking me how I got seats that good as if I had done something illegal to get them...I didn't, I swear. We were right in the second row, but no one was in front of us, so it was pretty much front row and just about dead center. $130 well spent. (gulp.) We loaded Scarlett up with cotton candy and non-watered down lemonade - something we most definitely would not have done had we not have been in a environment where all that hopped up energy would go to good use. Now...I'm not going to lie. When this show started I thought we were going to have to leave. Scarlett was sitting in Joe's lap and all of a sudden the lights went out, loud music blasted, strobe lights flashed, and Scarlett saw Big Bird skip on stage and she royally freaked out. Hey...if you saw a giant 9 foot bird (that up until that very afternoon had been a minuscule 10 inches on the TV screen) you'd freak out too. Scarlett started crying and we were just about to move some rows back so we weren't practically sitting in Big Bird's lap...but then she looked around and saw all the other (slightly older) kids cheering and being the Scarlett that she is, she mimicked the older kids and smiled and cheered along with them...gradually at first.

Scarlett caught on quick. She sat and intently watched the whole show. This is what she did at the end of every song. Seriously people...how cute?

We saw everybody from Sesame Street. We saw Bert and Ernie.

and Tully.We saw Abby...and Zoe...

and this...guy (?)and Big Bird and Cookie Monster...

and of course we saw Elmo...ahh, Elmo.Scarlett was petrified of the Count...

Seriously though...can you blame her? This is one creepy looking dude.

The whole gang... I was surprised that Scarlett was not very interested in Elmo during the show. She kept asking for this guy

When Cookie walked off stage, she would shrug her shoulders and say "Cookie?" (no lie.)All the characters would walk right in front of us to shake hands, but we kept waiting for Cookie. And then...

He's heading straight for us!Oh yeah...she shook his hand in complete awe right at the end of the show.Fireworks went off...literallyScarlett talked about it the whole way home...or for about 10 minutes before she fell asleep.

I doubt anyone would believe me if I said that was the most fun I've had in a while, but I'm going to say it anyway. Joe and I are still talking about it.